Back in my first year as a middle school science teacher, I asked experienced colleagues, “When will I know what I am doing as a teacher?” One said it would be at least three years. Another forecasted five. Well, I am approaching the end of my fifth year, and I have come to know what I am doing as a teacher – I am learning.

Now, if you’re a new teacher, that has got to be a frustrating answer to a meaning-of-life type of question, but please hear me out. Maybe some of the “growth mindset” preaching to students has finally started to rub off on me. It is clear as day that if you’re not learning as a teacher, you are stagnating and you will either lose steam or lose heart. In learning from students and colleagues, we can stay prepared and motivated for tomorrow. Toward this end, I dipped my toes into Twitter, looking for ways to boost my professional learning network (PLN).

Every day as teachers, we learn from our students. There is a constant push and pull, a give and take, an ebb and flow, which, at worst, feels like pulling teeth, and, at best, feels like cooperation. When students know we are doing our best, they know we care about them, so they do their best, and everybody learns and grows. I tell students that they are “growing up and growing out” like a tree. As they grow their own self identity (tree trunk), ideas and skills (branches, leaves, flowers and fruit), their roots are also growing to support them and connect them with their community and others outside of their community.

As teachers, we refresh, expand and improve our practice when we collaborate with each other. In the tree analogy, PLNs are like nutrient exchange in plant-fungal symbioses. The people we work with everyday are part of our support system (our roots) and we can expand that system through connections outside of our communities through online PLNs (network of mycelia). Through the PLN we can gain invaluable resources and share our strengths with others.

Why Twitter as a PLN tool?

Twitter is a far-reaching, flexible, and focused tool to boost your PLN. Forte, Humphreys and Park (2012) argue that, “through twitter, teachers forge and maintain professional ties outside their local schools and, in doing so, become conduits for new practices and ideas to move in and out of their local communities.” (Discussion, paragraph 1) If that doesn’t sound like the role of a fungal symbiont, then I don’t know what does.

Twitter is far-reaching in that you can expand your PLN beyond your department, school and district to enrich the diversity of your PLN. Krutka, Carpenter and Trust (2017) designed a PLN enrichment framework, in which they ask questions about the people, spaces and tools involved in our PLNs. Here are examples from each category of questions:

People:

• Which people might I add to my PLN – including those with different perspectives or backgrounds – to enrich my learning?

Spaces:

• What new spaces should I seek out to advance my learning and that of my students?

In case we need a reminder, Larson Jr. (2007) explains why diversity of ideas is helpful for problem solving:

“When different members possess different types of knowledge, skills, and abilities germane to performing the task, the group as a whole has more to work with – and so greater potential to perform well – than when every member possesses essentially the same knowledge, skills and abilities.” (p. 414)

For example, in my department of science teachers, we are all male and would benefit from the addition of ideas and perspectives from teachers of other genders.

Twitter is flexiblein that there are many different ways to use it, from lurking, to learning to sharing, synchronously and asynchronously. I had always known hashtags as way to connect people and ideas asynchronously, which is great in times when synchronous communication is not possible. Then, a conversation with a colleague got me thinking about how to use Twitter synchronously and I found a few resources for Twitter chats.

TweetDeck – dashboard and management tool for your twitter account, allows you to organize information from Twitter and follow specific hashtags and chats with ease.

Lastly, Twitter is focused because you can leave behind the social distractions of other social media platforms. By starting a teacher account and mindfully choosing who you follow, you can keep your home page or “feed” focused on the learning goals you have for yourself and for your students.

Growing your PLN through Twitter

This summer I made a huge life choice by leaving teaching and entering the educational technology industry to continue my work with SPU School of Ed and the Digital Educational Leadership program. I moved from Seattle to San Francisco and started working for Edmodo as the Community Growth Manager. I believe that a piece of that is due to my time on social media and growing my professional learning network. The way I used social media made me thrive and build my support base to believe in what I was doing in the classroom and for my career. As George Siemens states “a central tenet of most learning theories is that learning occurs inside a person. Even social constructivist views, which hold that learning is a socially enacted process, promotes the principality of the individual (and her/his physical presence – i.e. brain-based) in learning” (2005). Educators need to figure out how to utilize the tools that we have available in place on the world wide web and by doing so we can harness the global collaborative power of teachers around the world. Teachers can use Twitter to connect with new educators, communicate what really happens on the job, create a public professional persona to help students know what it means to have self-awareness and positive online self-management. During April, 2017 I created and ran a Global Collaborative Project that used Twitter in the classroom. I appreciated this video to help spur my students inspiration by Ted Ed – What makes a poem … a poem? – Melissa Kovacs

Workshop Title and Description

Presentation Session “Growing your PLN with Twitter” – Educators are using Twitter to grow their professional learning network, sharing resources, and building the global educational community. I am one of the PSESD Washington Teacher Leaders for Twitter this year, and I want to share how this program and the use of

Twitter has made me a better more informed teacher. Twitter can be a way to create a strong professional social media platform for yourself to help promote what you are doing in your classroom every day. I think this topic is important because teachers spend so much of their time alone. We have our classrooms and our students but when it comes to honest peer-to-peer contact it takes so much time and investment. Some teachers don’t ever make those important connections with their colleagues in their building and Twitter or other Social Learning Networks are crucial for creating new conversations with people outside of your building.

In 2015, Denise Scavitto wrote an article Teachers: Embrace Twitter for Professional Development and I appreciate the way she explains the reason behind using Twitter to grow a PLN. “For me, Twitter is a way of consuming information targeted to my interests. Using a hashtag like #sschat connects me to topics that will interest and intrigue Social Studies teachers – from all walks of life – and all because I know what to look for. Twitter isn’t overwhelming anymore – it’s incredible. I’ve connected myself to an extensive personal learning network of educators, entrepreneurs, and innovators through a little bird – and found it the best professional development I’ve never paid for” (Edudemic).

Learning Objective Event

My objective is to create a presentation for my session on teachers using Twitter to grow their PLN. There are 600 educators are registered for the conference total. I am not sure if anyone has signed up for my session yet, but I am hoping to talk to around 30 teachers specifically about my topic. The conference I am CCS Powerful Learning Conference in Issaquah, WA on August 16th, 2017. I already submitted a small proposal and got it accepted in November. I have a handout but may need to complete a couple more. The venue is the CCS Powerful Learning Conference at Issaquah High School in my old district. I was inspired to submit a request because I went to the conference last year and I wanted to show growth by speaking at the next year’s conference.

Length

My presentation should be one hour and fifteen minutes long. That is the required length. I think it would be essential to provide blended content. I could probably make it a lot longer but this will help me limit and edit my work. I also submitted a proposal to NCCE for their 50-minute session. I think I can cut a lot of my material out if I could accomplish a true flipped or blended learning environment.

Workshop/Online Elements

Active and engaged learning

Twitter in Plain English

Tweet It’s Good for the Soul – Slide deck

Common Misconceptions & FAQ

The first one is that 140 characters are not enough to have a productive conversations. But my counter to that one is imagine you are in a meeting with 20 of your closest friends in your department or staff. How much content do you add in that 45 to 60 minute meeting? With the addition of pictures it opens a whole other place for content. The 140 characters also limits people from venting, blabbing, and allows for constraint when we know sometimes educational meetings can run long.

If you don’t have a lot of followers then there isn’t any point. But I disagree because it is more important about how you use the platform. To gain followers you must use the platform on a consistent basis.

Hashtags are just trendy things for young people and are not professional enough to take serious. I think that if it is for “young people” then that in itself is a reason to give it a try. It keeps you current and it also allows you to connect with your students. If teachers are not constantly learning then they are taking steps backwards.

Twitter for communication and collaboration come with the the idea that it is only for some politicians and weird bots who spam up your feed. But I think that is another way to show to students, parents, and admin that it does not always have to be ran that way. It can be “boring” as my students said when they found and read my twitter feed. I said it isn’t boring to me it is what I am interested in and what I like to talk about.

This week in my exploration of ISTE Coaching Standards with my graduate program in Digital Education Leadership at Seattle Pacific University, I am continuing to examine ISTE Coaching Standard 3 and specifically point G, in an effort to understand how teachers can create…

This standard immediately made me think of my final assignment and Global Collaborative Project from EDTC 6103 in the Spring of 2017. In this project, I worked together with my administrator, advanced eighth-grade language arts students, and parents to create a global collaborative environment. If you scroll down you can see the whole breakdown of the project from planning to execution to feedback and reflections. One unexpected outcome of the project was the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) that took place. And now that the state of Washington’s educational legislative body (OSPI) and similarly in other states have hooked onto the fact that social emotional learning is essential to a student’s health and future my project is even more relevant. The unexpected part came as many students do not get to experiment with new digital tools in their classrooms very often especially not real world social media platforms due to unpredictability and fear. I decided to push the envelope a bit so that my students got to use Twitter during national poetry month. I got the okay from my principal and the parents were notified. This gave my students an authentic audience and an external megaphone to share their work. The flip side and surprising part were that students felt exposed and vulnerable with their writing out in the public sphere.

Now, taking a step back I first want to use Washington States OSPI’s definition of SEL “social emotional learning is broadly understood as a process through which people build awareness and skills in managing emotions, setting goals, establishing relationships and making responsible decisions, leading to success in school and in life. Research shows SEL on a large scale supports better performing and more positive school communities” (2016, pg. 3). I think in our current 21st-century digital revolution that digital citizenship fits directly into that “awareness”. Being able to build a positive self-rewarding social media presence that adds to your life instead of distracts or detracts is something that now needs to be taught in classes.

Therefore, to implement SEL “effectively and equitably schools will need to (1) start by evaluating and building school and classroom environments that are conducive to SEL; (2) incorporate principles of universal design for learning when adapting SEL curricula to their unique climate; (3) emphasize equity in the selection and implementation of curriculum; and (4) take a holistic approach, understanding that each person (child and adult) will start at different places and progress in different ways along an SEL continuum” (2016, pg. 7). As I began my project with my students I did not know realize how serious posting on the internet can be for some of them. Online personas are extremely personal and some of my students struggled with posting and sharing their poetry. Not only but some just could not handle the wide range of communication that Twitter allows for. As the social benchmark, standard five states students should have the ability to “demonstrate a range of communication and social skills to interact effectively with others” (2016, pg. 4). Although many teachers and adults do not want to admit it being able to communicate on social media is essential to these effective interactions with their peers. At the end of the process, I believe that some students understood through my examples that a social media platform like Twitter does not have to be for ranting or spamming people. It can be used for good and for a specific purpose, to make friends and connections and build a network of people for your own community.

Connection Phase

ISTE Teaching Standards

In order to clearly reflect on the alignment of the ISTE Teaching Standards in the project that follows, I have used the standard number and letter to identify them accordingly.

ISTE Student 2 Communication & Collaboration Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

a. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

b. Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats

Communication with Collaborating Partner

For this global collaborative project, I have chosen to utilize a vast amount of teacher professionals on Twitter during the National Poetry Month of April. Most of us teach English for middle or high school classes; there are also teachers that tweet posts for their elementary school students. Although I did reach out to a couple of other teachers specifically, it was more about working on a larger platform. Our shared intent of expanding our students’ reach regarding sharing their work is increased via Twitter (2. a. & b.).

My colleagues and I did communicate over direct messaging on Twitter. I also reached out to other Humanities teachers in the ISD via email to inform my local colleagues and interested district employees. Given the collective subject area expertise and subjects taught, we will focus our attention on language arts content and skills. Specifically sharing and writing our poetry. Since I started working with PSESD and Corelaborate as a Washington Teacher Leader my ability to monitor and use Twitter has expanded. It became apparent that this vast social media platform could be an opportunity for a wider community might provide a rich opportunity for a technology-supported collaboration project between our students (2. a. & b.).

General Overview

Project Plan

The goal of this endeavor is to expose my students to a global collaboration project, which allows students to work with peers across the Twitterverse and see how far their posts/tweets can go. It can also teach valuable skills like digital citizenship, communication and collaboration, and information fluency (5. a. & b.). I decided to work with my two-morning Advanced 8th-grade Language Arts classes; I have roughly 26 students in each class. I chose those two sections because I thought they could handle the responsibilities that come with using Twitter and making the required deadlines of posting a lot better than my other classes (5. a. & b.). In those two classes, I have 24 boys and 26 girls which I think will play a part in participation. Each student will be asked to create and use a Twitter account during the month of April and early May. April is the National Poetry Month (#npm17) and April, 27th we would participate in International Poetry in your Pocket Day. The project will be a sharing of creative writing to a wider more authentic audience while sustaining a professional demeanor on a social media platform. My students will “like”– communicate and collaborate with other students via Twitter (2. a. & b.).

Technology & Communication

I have already stated the use of technology will be predominately the Twitter application on their smartphones. I created a new account for this project and to keep the students safe from trolls and spammers. Twitter is a free social media tool used for communicating. You are allowed to use 140 characters to message other people; certain hashtags will allow others to connect and collaborate easily (2. a. & b.). Students were told to either tweet their poetry as written or take or make a photo of their poetry. Some students used Canva or iPhone image editing apps; others just took a picture right from their interactive notebooks.

Project

Instead of National Poetry Month and my students and I beginning our two to three weeks poetry unit. Students will receive four different poetry writing assignments that they will need to post to Twitter. All will use the hashtags #poetryisd, and #poetryhw for collaboration with their peers and they will Tweet at me (@ottenadpoetry), so I am notified that they have done their assignments (2. a. & b.). Students will also participate in International Poetry in your Pocket Day.

Additional Considerations

This project will require multiple check-ins with Twitter but will be primarily asynchronous in nature. Students will be posting at different times and will have certain requirements to hit at various times. They are required to interact with their fellow students’ tweets regarding “likes,” replies or retweets. I will also keep up on the people following the account and block any trolls or spammers. I have consulted the district’s AUP and the fact that the students are at least 14 years old and Twitter is open on all classroom computers we are not violating anything. I have notified parents of what is going on in the classroom and opened the window to allow them to follow our classroom interactions.

Common Core English Language Arts Standards

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.6 – Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.8.10 – By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.3.D – Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.6 – Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

Design Phase

Global Collaborative Project Outline

Six A’s of Project-Based Learning

6 A’s of Project Design

Guiding Questions

Authenticity

What is the point of writing when the audience is only my teacher? How can I get my students’ creative writing heard by a larger audience? What could push them to create better more thought out poetry?

By placing the poetry on Twitter students have a true authentic audience that feels larger and more important than just our classroom and their classmates.

How will your project require students to produce something that has personal and/or social value beyond the school setting?

Students will start to see what happens when their poetry is shared and found. Specifically on the National Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 27th. Students will have their poem they want to share with them and also share it on the web. It can be one of their own making or one that inspires them in some way.

Academic Rigor

What disciplines, content areas, and standards will your project address?This project hits an array of standards that only pertain to poetry and figurative language in language arts. Specifically, it is for my 8th-grade advanced language arts classes at IMS. It also requires the students to share their writing with people who may or may not like it. Their bubble becomes much larger than it used to be once we put things out there on the world wide web. It also connects securely with the following speaking and listening standards. I have taught several different units for poetry and at the high school level, we used to have a poetry night that was hosted by the language arts department. Teachers, parents, admin and of course students would attend. This event was great but I always thought that the poetry could be sent to an even wider audience. What higher order thinking skills will students be using?Learning Targets: Students can analyze how the structure of the text can contribute to its meaning. Students can use their Twitter accounts to correctly post and tag their poems in a multimedia setting. They will use the social media tool to connect with the outside world.

Adult Connection

How will the adults collaborate to design the project and/or assess student work?I have reached out to my whole language arts department at my school and my TOSA for the whole district is also sharing the Poem in Your Pocket in the next newsletter. Teachers are sending me their favorite poetry and poems they have written so I can share it on Twitter for them or they can share themselves and use the same hashtags. I am also collaborating with the national cohort of teachers who are participating in the same National Poetry Month. I saw how other teachers were conducting their programs and I got ideas of how to entice students to post their tweets. What opportunities will students have to observe, interact, and work closely with adults?My students are posting their poetry alongside adults for National Poetry Month. They can see using the same hashtags what it looks like to publicly disperse your materials. We also perused Twitter together to like, retweet, or reply to certain poets and their work.

Active Exploration

How will students engage in real investigations and field-based work?What technology tools and media sources will students use?My students are predominantly using their phones or school provided laptops to post their Tweets on to Twitter. How will students be expected to communicate their new knowledge and skills?They are expected to post their tweets within specific calendar dates using certain hashtags and tagging my poetry Twitter account @ottenadpoetry. Hashtags include #Poetryhw, #poetryISD, #Pocketpoem, #NPM17

Applied Learning

How is your project grounded in real-world learning?Students have to create a piece of creative writing which is not always set in the real world, but then presenting it and sharing it on Twitter a social media platform is more connected to real-world. They will have to learn as it has taken me quite some time that self-promotion is crucial for success. It also is clear that presentation matters, students who are taking their time to make a graphic that goes along with their poems are getting more traction than those who simply take a photo of their notebooks and post it. How will your students work in teams and problem solve with each other?Students worked together to find poems for Poem in Your Pocket day and which ones they would post and why. How will your project help students develop organizational and self-management skills?Beyond the other two questions, I think students will develop organizational self-management skills. This project counts on them remembering to write their poems, create some graphic, and post the poems in the time allotted for their due dates.

Assessment Practice

What project criteria will students use, and how will they reflect on their learning? During the week following most of the posting, I will have students reflect on the process of writing the poetry and then having to share it on Twitter. How will standards be assessed? See rubric below.

Activity details: Students will participate in our Poetry Unit by also posting on Twitter and being involved in the International Poetry Month. We will use different hashtags to get in the correct threads of communication so they can spread their poems to larger audiences.

Execution of Project

Parent Guardian Email/Letter

Dear Parents/Guardians,

Our classroom is getting connected! Please follow us on Twitter as we use this social media tool as a class to share, connect, and collaborate with the world around us during Poetry Month. We are in the beginning stages of a poetry unit and April in Poetry Month. For the rest of April and beginning of May, we will use our classroom Twitter account (@ottenadpoetry) to share snippets of our work, learning, and life at school.

Our goal will be to tweet several times per weeks about poetry. At first, I will model how to tweet about our work or exciting poetry opportunities. As the students grow in their understandings of how to use Twitter to share ideas, they will begin to tweet independently or with a partner.

Students’ safety is of utmost concern. Last names should not be used in tweets and accounts. We will avoid using images of students in our Tweets. Responsible use of social media and Internet safety will be explicitly taught in our classroom to ensure all students know how to stay safe while online. Here are our classroom norms for using Twitter:

Approve your tweets with an adult before publishing especially if you feel it may be deemed inappropriate.

We only connect to classes and people who add value to our learning.

We use first names only on Twitter

Twitter is a tool for learning.

Finally, if you do not have a Twitter account, and need assistance on creating one please come by and ask me or ask your student. We would be more than willing to help you create a Twitter account so you can start following our class. We will probably not follow you back because it is our policy that we only follow other classrooms or educational Twitter feeds. Using these social media tools will give you a glimpse into our classroom and your child’s learning in a new and exciting format. I think you will love being “connected”!

“Tweet” fully yours,

Mrs. Autumn Ottenad

@ottenadpoetry

@ssseason7

Email to Staff & Colleagues:

Good Morning,

I am working on a class for SPU that requires a Global Community Project and I have decided to combine our poetry unit, national poetry month and Twitter with my students. I was also hoping that if you have Twitter you could potentially tweet some poetry using the #poetryhw and #poetryisd. If you even could email me a poem I can put them on Twitter for you. I know my students would love to see teacher input on this topic.

Here is some of the information I shared with students and parents. “Our classroom is getting connected! Please follow us on Twitter as we use this social media tool as a class to share, connect, and collaborate with the world around us during Poetry Month. We are in the beginning stages of a poetry unit and April in Poetry Month. For the rest of April and beginning of May, we will use our classroom Twitter account (@ottenadpoetry) to share snippets of our work, learning, and life at school.”

Thank you so much,

Mrs. Autumn Ottenad

8th Grade Humanities

IMS

@ottenadpoetry

@ssseason7

Collection of Student Artifacts from Twitter

Feedback from Students

Positive Feedback for both Twitter & Poetry

Positive for Twitter/Negative for Poetry

Positive for Poetry/ Negative for Twitter

Negative Feedback for both Poetry & Twitter

Risa W. – The poetry unit was not as bad as I thought it would be, I liked tweeting the poems instead of turning them in. I don’t like the reflections though.

Trevor C. – Before we just turned it in. Poetry is bad but I like that we just post it on Twitter.

Ruth S. – I liked the unit, but I feel like I was not used to posting my poetry on twitter. I would write the poetry, but sometimes forget to post it. The poetry was fun to write.

Tommy B – It was terrible, horrible, no good we could have just turned it in during class no one even reads the poems on Twitter.

Mason B. – Tweeting the poems was really fun! Poetry was a chance to express true feelings hidden within other words, using rhymes, and making everyone more fun to read!

Matthew K. – This unit was as interesting unit to do. It was an interesting way to share poems. It was pretty boring but it was fine.

Makena L. – It was good to try to involve social media but it may be hard for students without a smartphone but it was annoying to make a twitter.

Alec B. – Twitter was a mess and is not an educational platform. Poetry is fine, just boring as ever. Technology should be used in other, more educational ways. Whatever.

Breana L. – I like tweeting them so everyone can see, but it is kind of confusing.

Cody C. – Tweeting our poems instead of reading them out loud was way better. More convenient and faster. The writing of the poems was the bad part. Poetry is very boring.

Madison N. – The actual unit was okay…but the Twitter part was unnecessary.

C.J. G. – Last year we had more instruction, this year we were just told to write poems.

Leila R. – Tweeting my poems wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I liked tweeting my poems out rather than having to read them out loud.

Daniel A. – I didn’t think it was terrible, but it was not the most fun. Personally, I don’t enjoy poetry, but I am grateful we didn’t need to present them. Overall, I think the unit was okay.

Shoki I. – Just turning in poems would have made more sense. Making a Twitter was completely pointless

Noreen A. – This unit was not the worst and it went better than I thought. Poetry is not my favorite, but it was fairly easy. The twitter part was different, but it seemed pointless in my opinion because most people just made the account so they didn’t have a large following.

Medha V. – I like tweeting our poems because more people are able to see it and I don’t feel embarrassed like I would if I was reading it to the class.

Benny P. – I did not enjoy the poetry unit, but mainly because I don’t like poetry in general, but I did learn a lot about poetry.

Camille P. – Compared to past poetry units using Twitter was definitely different. I think it’s difficult to use and some people don’t take it seriously and post random stuff. I don’t know whether it would be beneficial to use again.

Chris A. – My experience was mehh…it was less boring than other poetry units. It was kinda bad and corny.

Anonymous – I love this unit and I enjoyed the prompts we wrote about and posted. I also liked the way we shared the poems on twitter allowing me to share my poems and get used to technology. My only question is why we are the other units so much longer? I honestly wish I got to explore more mentor texts.

Gavin B. – I don’t like the poetry. The Song lyrics were okay. I liked using Twitter in class.

Aiden L. – Tweeting poems made me self-conscience about what I write so it made me think so it was fine.

Braden H. – Ever since the Twitter verification did not work I lost my LA book problems have stirred though I had to re-do some of my poems.

Mary – Poetry on Twitter is a really good tool for poetry, we get to post our poems.

William W. – I do not like poetry but I kind of like writing it. Tweeting the poems is good and an easy way to turn it in from home.

Aoife B. – The poetry unit was the best all year. I enjoyed it, but Twitter sucks. My poems don’t fit 140 characters other than that , good.

Lizzy J. – I was eh with the Twitter thing because it was a little extra and no one reads other people’s poems (at least I didn’t) and my mom got mad that i got an account without letting her know.

Katie Jo – I like how interactive it was, also I liked how I got to see other people’s poetry. I really enjoyed it!

Jeremy D. – Tweeting has been really easy to do, but poems aren’t fun. Tweeting was fun and a good use for poems.

Emme F. – Tweeting poems – it is embarrassing to show school work in a public social media place. Where I usually don’t talk about it. It was also a little extra work that seemed not helpful.

Jack W. – This was a pain it was nearly impossible to get photos to load and my poems were too long for a Tweet.

Katie – I liked using Twitter because I felt like it was a “safe environment” to share my poetic product. I also liked that I could explore poetry unlike I did in other units.

Isaiah J. – Tweeting my poems has been okay. I liked the poetry unit last year more, although it was interesting to share my poems with a larger audience.

Lindsey C. – Posting poetry for a grade is uncomfortable. Poetry is very personal and I don’t feel okay with sharing my feelings with everyone. Additionally, it’s hard to find all my posts even with the hashtags which is extra work for me and you to find them. I could be a good idea but not for middle schoolers.

Abi C. – My experience with Twitter was okay. It gave me some examples if I was stuck on what to do. It was okay compared to other units.

Ethan V – My experience with Twitter was fine and I was able to post without any problems. I just had small problems with the pictures. I thought it was a creative way to share, but not private.

Eva A. – Technology is a bit problematic, but I like this better than having to stand up and share.

Eli L. – This poetry unit was shorter than the one we did last year and also we didn’t have a final project this year which was nice.

Sophia C. – I didn’t like tweeting my poems because I don’t like sharing my writing I think it was a good concept, but I personally didn’t like it.

Kathryn M. – Tweeting poems went well. I thought it went better than most units, and it was fun. It was not terrible horrible no good.

Eden C – Tweeting poems was easy, but it seemed odd to force us to make an account. The comparison was okay.

Preston J. – I think that tweeting the poems were a good idea, and I am glad that we do not have to present them to a class. Also, this poetry unit was more unique than others I have taken before.

Ansh P. – Tweeting out poem was a pretty good experience and was relatively easy to do and better than other tests.

Data Analysis

It is interesting to note from the qualitative and quantitative data about the male to a female breakdown of their take on the project. Twelve of the fifteen students who liked both the poetry unit and the use of Twitter were young ladies and on the opposite end of feedback for those students who hated both parts six of the eight were male students. When I think back on it, the students who wrote negative feedback about both elements of this unit are pretty cynical students in general and usually criticize what I put in front of them. It is this fascinating new cultural trend of apathy, that “nothing is cool” and I know that is not a new trend for teens to think nothing is a fresh idea but I can’t imagine being negative about a teacher letting me use Twitter in a class assignment even if it was for poetry. The last piece of data that gave me hope for this overall project was the ten boy students who do not like poetry but liked the Twitter part of the project. Analysis of their interest is important because these are all students who I struggle with engagement and enticing them to do their best on their assignments. In this instance, their motivator was the ability to use their phones and use Twitter, but that had to come with some poetry. So either way, I did one of those fun teacher tricks where I got them writing what I wanted them to all under the guise of “fun.”

Self Reflection

This project was more successful and easier than I had expected it to be. I am very lucky to have an administration team that allows for experimentation and trial and error. He and the rest of my staff allowed for me to try something new and use an online tool that is not usually utilized at the middle school level. But because Twitter is such a notorious application, due in part to our current political situation, I thought practicing in a more academic setting could help students learn about how to act on an expansive social media platform.

Access to technology was the initial challenge as standardized testing ate into our planned timeline. And standardized testing uses all the laptop computers in the building. But most students have a smartphone with the Twitter app-enabled, therefore I just had to bend the school rules a bit to allow students to access the app from their mobile devices. Those few students who did not have their Smartphones or did not have their own devices (tablet, or laptop) at their disposal I allowed to use one of the seven desktops I have setup in my room. While Twitter proved to be a useful tool for arranging the open and moderated communication between students, I failed to consider how some students would handle the requirement of creating an account on their own. It again made me take stock of the fact that we call this generation “digital natives” because they were born with a tablet in their hands, but when it comes to tasks like opening a new account or application they struggle. Establishing the hashtags in Twitter required students to sign-up, log-in and post a tweet and ensure they tagged the correct people and hashtags. Then, I had to individually check that each student had posted and labeled their tweets appropriately. Once students joined, I had to individually like and/comment on all 55+ students to their specific tweets. And, all of this was done asynchronously between classes or from home. I also had to monitor my new account like a hawk to ensure I did not have any trolls following me or someone who had posted within our hashtags which were gross or offensive. In the end, I had to delete one to two items per day.

As students began the formative stage of writing their poetry they needed time to make their poems before posting them. So some time in class was spent just generating ideas and creating versions of the poems they would eventually post. Students decided on their own how they would post their poems to Twitter. Because they have a 140 character limit, most students took pictures of their poems and posted them that way. While others created word art and graphics that helped desirably present the poems.

I anticipate trying this project again and potentially having a classroom Twitter account all year long. I had parents immediately begin to follow me and it was a great way for them to have more insight into what we do in my classroom. I have not spoken with my administration about doing it again, but because he did not deal with any actual backlash or parents being upset, I figure I would have the ability to try it again. I think I would also add in some more analytics about best times to tweet and when will students get the most views. I would also use the work I did in Module four of this class to push the digital citizenship piece about netiquette and the real feelings that come out of putting things out into the World Wide Web.

From my interpretation of the standards, ISTE 5 is about how teachers model lifelong learning and engage in learning to benefit their school or community through the use of digital tools. I wanted to find what districts might do to craft the best PD that they can for teachers who are at all different levels of comfort and proficiency with technology. Additionally if districts develop a successful model for tech PD I think that would give teachers some of the tools they need to lead in their individual schools. When I write about technology I’m referring to technology for professional daily use as well as integrating technology into the learning environment. The reason I want to focus on both professional use and technology integration is because I’ve noticed that the questions I field in my current position deal with both use and instructional integration and I think that a varied approach will serve the most teachers.

First, it is important to acknowledge that there are different levels of learners, and from there I think that districts need to build in means for teachers a varying levels to receive quality professional development. I also think it is important for districts to help buildings to organize their own technology PD in innovative ways. I have a few ideas about what has worked for my building, or some teachers in my building but overall I’m hoping to suggest an approach that might work to help teachers receive high quality and meaningful PD to aid technology integration.

Through the years I’ve attended a number of professional development classes taught by different instructors. From those experiences I’ve tried to distill down what makes for a fulfilling experience in a tech PD. I’ll admit that I’m somewhat confused. Thinking back I know I have been to some great sessions and some that felt less than great. I know that often the learning just has to makes sense for the learner, still I think there has to be some kind of formula or guideline. What makes it click? One experience I’ll highlight worked for me. I went a training on Vodcasting, which is recording a short video for students to use. I’ve always been drawn to video so I had a particular interest in the topic. It was a great combination of something that felt relevant to me and something I could foresee helping my students. In that sense, I think it fit the perfect time scenario. Also it was just beyond my realm of comfort. In order to do the homework required of the class, I had to learn to use iMovie, which I don’t find intuitive at all. That class pushed me, but today 7 years later, I find that I’m still using some skills from that class in my classroom to create math videos. That seems like a relatively successful PD and it doesn’t even fit all of the guidelines that I read about this week. So I can imagine that if PD opportunities were redesigned with best practices in mind to serve the most teachers possible with sustained focus, many more would be meaningful for more teachers.

As a side note, one of my colleagues in the DEL program posted a great overview of what she has been doing in her district, and it is a wonderful meaningful approach for teachers. I would like to link it later with her permission.

Based on my reading I have some good ideas about what could be meaningful for teacher going forward but I wonder how we are affected by past PD experiences? Changing perceptions will take time. No doubt providing a meaningful set of professional development classes for teachers is a struggle districts will continue to have. I hope that through new ideas and strategies all professional development will become more meaningful for more teachers rather than just a signature to say that you have attended, because you had to pick a class, or you had to be there for some other reason. I’m excited that part of my new position will be providing PD regarding technology, I’m excited to learn more about the process and to attempt to provide meaningful and engaging PD.

The ideas below are some of the things that I think might lead to a meaningful transformation in professional development. Of course this is really just scratching the surface in terms of resources that are available. However, I thought I would include them because I found them to be innovative or essential or both and I think they could help to further differentiate the PD that is offered.

Interesting approaches to PD that I came across in my reading:

Leveraging Twitter as a district to host chats, showcase work and provide a space PLC just like Twitter is great at doing within district (Raths, 2015)

Allowing microcredentials as a way to demonstrate competency (Raths, 2015)

If you want to learn more about microcredentials, I came across them when writing a post on ISTE 2 where I learned about Deeper Learning

Establishing and maintaining a district repository of tools, videos, screencasts and other resources related to technology PD

Establishing a strong team of technology coaches to journey with and guide teachers

Provide enough PD for sustained learning (50 hours!) (Crawford, 2014)

To me these are just some of the ways to start changing the PD model from within a school district. Ideally it would be great to see a state get involved in this process to encourage districts to begin to change the way we do PD. I’m excited to have a chance to do this in my district and to support teachers as they continue their journey to meaningful technology integration. If you would like to read more in depth about any of the ideas I’ve presented here, I found a great resource from EdSurge that is cited below. It really seems to be a an amazing guide to how some districts are retooling professional development.

Reflection

This quarter I feel that I have grown quite a lot in my understanding of the ISTE standards for teachers. From the start I had a hard time shifting my focus from students to teachers. At the start I don’t feel that I understood the standards for teacher well. Now through our investigation and blog posts this quarter I feel that I have a much better understanding of these standards and I understand how the connect and link to the student standards. Knowing my own predisposition for rigidity and how I resort to the standard practice I think that my growth in ISTE #1 is the most significant. I also feel that it is an area where I can continue to grow as long as I push my own thinking and remind myself of the myriad of ways there are to learn and to demonstrate learning. Another area for growth for me is in regard to ISTE Standard 5 and Coaching Standard 2. As a technology coach I feel much more prepared to lead other teachers as they strive to use technology in a meaningful way with students, to facilitate assessing students in a formative way and to connect with other teachers across the globe. Through the investigations I have completed during this last quarter and from reading the investigations my colleagues have posted, I feel infinitely more prepared to respond to the needs of teachers. I can’t wait to draw upon the resources and tools I have come across in this course as I assist teacher with the integration of technology into their classes.

How can I participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning?

(National Education Technology Plan 2010)

The word networking to me as a public school educator is such a foreign concept. An idea meant for young entrepreneurs and marketers. Even more for those who are just graduating from college in a more mainstream industry like computer science or business administration to get their names out there and have their faces seen by the “right people” because it is all about who you know and creating connections. But as I have learned through the Digital Educational Leadership Program at SPU teachers need to get into the mindset of networking for their own benefit. I used to ask myself why/what would I need to network for because I already have a job? Or why/how would networking help me or my classroom become a better place to learn? Networking is not just for getting a job it is also about helping new teachers coup with challenges, finding allies outside your own school, and just having someone to talk to outside of your own business bubble. The U.S. Department of Education stated a similar sentiment in the 2010 report “online communities of practice support teachers’ learning, enabling them to ‘collaborate with their peers and leverage world-class experts to improve student learning’ and ‘extend the reach of specialized and exceptional educators”’(p. 42 – 44).

As Getting Smart states in their post “20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network,” Networking is essential for all professionals and “a prime form of 21st-century learning.” Education is becoming one massive global collaborative project where our end goal is to help the student the best way we can. As many start their first teaching job, I was given a class roster and told to “teach” with a textbook in hand. This was at the beginning of the Common Core movement, and SBAC was in the looming future. Of course, we had standardized tests to guide what the students should be able to accomplish by the end of their 9th and 11th-grade year but not many more expectations other than that. I needed help, and although my mentor was incredible, it was difficult for me to comprehend filling up 55 minutes with materials all by myself. TeacherspayTeachers became my first ally, but that got expensive and not sustainable. Then after a couple of years and realizing I will never know it all in teaching, I reached out to other sources. Getting Smart explains it well “as educators, we aim to be connected to advance our craft. On another level, we hope to teach students to use networks to prepare for them for a changing job market” (2013).

I have focused mostly on Twitter for growing my Professional Learning Network (PLN), specifically working with PSESD and Corelaborate organizing and participating in Twitter chats about education for the past couple years. I also attended the recent EdCampPSWA “Unconference” at Annie Wright to help grow my PLN, and although I have not attended a large educational conference before I feel like it would be a useful adventure. But the reality is that since I have started growing my own PLN I have certainly felt less alone, and I know that my feelings as an educator are actually validated across the country. Teaching can be such an isolating job because we live in our classrooms and I see 150 middle school students daily but days can go by without me interacting adults on an authentic level.

It is important to remember all public school teachers feel isolated at some point in their careers. In Rebecca Alber’s article, she explains, “Six Ways to Avoid Feeling Isolated in the Classroom” and she specifically says “Unlike our friends and family working in the private sector, we teachers spend 98 percent of our time, not with peers, but with children and in our classrooms. So it’s easy to forget to reach out and have adult conversations during our workdays” (2012). Her six options are all about person-to-person suggestions and I am always thinking about more online/technology ways to connect with other educators but she does mention Daniel Gilbert’s research on happiness, a Harvard psychology professor. He puts it this way: “We are by far the most social species on Earth,” explains Gilbert. “If I wanted to predict your happiness, and I could know only one thing about you, I wouldn’t want to know your gender, religion, health, or income. I’d want to know about your social network — about your friends and family and the strength of the bonds with them” (Albers, 2012) And as the U.S. Department of Education reiterates “collaboration is an effective approach for strengthening educators’ practices and improving the systemic capacity of districts and schools—and, ultimately, improving student learning” (2010). Without the outside collaborating I do on a daily/weekly basis online and with my SPU cohort outside of my school, I would feel lost. One small fish in a gigantic pond with a little foothold on how to bridge these gaps and inspire my students to do better and more.

For the third module of this quarter I was wavering about what I wanted to research and dive into. My question for the last two weeks is based around helping teachers avoid learned helplessness and resolve issues using technology. There are so many directions I could have gone with this and my mind was running in circles over what types of problems teachers I know have had with technology.

G – use digital communication and collaboration tools to communicate locally and globally with students, parents, peers, and the larger community.

Often, I’ve worked with teachers who have become frustrated with the thought of even starting a project with technology or using it for their own professional development. It is an overwhelming process.

This video is from a few years ago but I think it’s still worth a look about how technology and teaching is viewed over time.

Technology and Professional Learning Networks

Generally, what I have heard from other teachers is that they don’t have many resources to continuously learn more about using technology and they often feel as if they are by themselves in this game. This got me thinking about professional learning networks (PLN), specifically ones that are based in technology.

Who are “Digital Immigrants”?

On the blog The Innovative Educator (2010), the author talks about the term “Digital Immigrants” which was coined by Marc Prensky. Teachers who don’t have enough training in technology are in this category and feel that they are not “native” users of technology as their students are. The biggest message?

Get over not being a native and take control of your own learning.

The basic idea is don’t allow a lack of training to determine your growth but create your personal learning networks where you can take responsibility for your own digital literacy.

I resonate with that.

What can we do as teachers to not be content with where we are in our professional growth?

Learned Helplessness

This can also be thought of as “learned helplessness”. In Andrew Miller’s post about this he describes learned helplessness from the point of view of students but it can easily be seen from a teacher’s point of view. This is especially true about what he has to say regarding curating and creating learning resources. He says “We have to be comfortable not always knowing the answer, and instead suggesting we find the answer together through the vast amount of learning resources at our disposal.” Although this relates to helping children find resources, we as adults need to make sure we have resources at our disposal to glean from. Twitter is one way to do this.

Twitter

I have noticed that PLN’s using Twitter have grown more popular in the last few years and according to a post on the website Teacher Challenges, many teachers agree with the idea that Twitter is one of the top ways that they help grow their PLN. I highly recommend you check out their article about using Twitter to build your PLN as it does a good job in describing how start using Twitter for your professional growth.

Twitter can be used to connect in general with other teachers in whatever content area that you are in and there are many ways to participate. This is true whether you join structured twitter chat sessions with teachers all over the world you haven’t met or if you connect with people you met in person at a conference. This post on using Twitter to expand your professional network gives some examples of chats (although the times may be out of date) as well as general steps for setting up your account.

Tweet Chat, Hashtags, and Etiquette

If you’re interested in learning more about chatting, Tweetchat.com is an excellent website for easily finding chats. It’s very simple. All you do is enter the hashtag that you want to learn more about and it instantly gives you other people who are talking about the same things.

Here is also a list of educational technology related hashtags that are popular in that realm that can help you find applicable twitter chats.

Are you new to Twitter? Here are some etiquette tips…

Where to Go From Here…

Using Twitter and other social media sites for professional development may seem daunting at first, but if you start slowly you can greatly increase your ability to feel more comfortable with technology. Although I am presenting this as a way you can increase your use of technology and familiarity with technology in the classroom, you can of course use it as a way of deepening your knowledge of your specific content area.

As an educator, my goal is to constantly become better at my job and that is a hard thing to do alone. Being a part of a professional learning network has greatly increased my knowledge and skills as a teacher and it is my hope that others will try out online PLNs as well, especially if you are hesitant with using technology.

In an effort that represents ISTE Teacher Standard 3 (Model digital age work and learning; 3c: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats) my district utilizes Blackboard Connect: K-12 ConnectED’s automated phone system to communicate with parents and guardians via phone and […]

Guiding Question: What resource is available to assist with managing multiple social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.; and multiple accounts within each)? On a related note, what are the best practices for utilizing social media tools in the classroom? It’s become apparent that I need a better system for managing multiple social media accounts, […]

ISTE Teacher Standard 3: Model digital age work and learning Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. According to Wikipedia, Twitter debuted online in July 2006. More than ten years later, in September 2016, I finally joined the Twitter universe. The connection to ISTE […]